


Tofu Chocolate Hearts

by zenonaa



Category: Dangan Ronpa
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-14
Updated: 2015-02-14
Packaged: 2018-03-12 09:18:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,200
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3351380
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zenonaa/pseuds/zenonaa
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Fukawa finds herself making chocolates with Asahina and Kirigiri.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Tofu Chocolate Hearts

The local store, despite its small size, allocated an entire aisle to ready-made chocolates and as Touko trudged through it, she eyed the white shelves either side of her. Boxes gleamed in the artificial lighting - pink, red, black, white, yellow, and more, all separated into different shades within those colour categories.

Writers had to conjure colours with words, had to paint pigments with two tone text, so she knew at a glance what kind of brown the box that caught her eye was. Bistre brown, though no one asked. Like the other boxes on display, it was tied with ribbon, kissed with a decorative bow and sealed in crackly cellophane. She hesitated next to it, her hand hovering, fingers trembling within touching distance of the box’s plastic packaging.

“Fukawa-chan!”

Touko twitched almost enough to jump off the laminate flooring. Clasping her hand over her chest, she spun around to see who had called her name.

Aoi hurried over from the other end of the aisle, a metal shopping basket swinging from her crooked elbow. Each step squeaked. Kyouko lagged behind, keeping to a slower pace, but because Aoi decelerated significantly once halfway down the aisle, Kyouko joined the other two only a second or so after Aoi stepped into a stop beside Touko.

“Oh, are you buying chocolates this year?” asked Aoi with a sideways tilt of her head. “Do you need help finding one for Togami?”

“B-Byakuya-sama doesn’t like homemade,” explained Touko, fidgeting her hands. Her eyes flitted to the rows of professionally made chocolate in their professionally wrapped boxes, still unable to locate one worthy enough. Even the bristle brown box that she earlier considered a candidate was too ordinary and common for a unique and brilliant guy like her darling Byakuya.

“If he really wants store bought chocolate, he’ll buy it himself,” Aoi pointed out, jiggling her arm so the items in her basket rattled. “What Togami can’t get by himself is Fukawa-chan-style homemade chocolate.”

Touko peeked into Aoi’s basket, which contained a silicon mould, a few chocolate pens and several bars of chocolate. Kyouko’s basket held a different coloured mould, brown instead of pink, but otherwise matched Aoi’s basket in contents.

“‘F-Fukawa-chan-style’?” said Touko, eyes narrowed. “W-What...? Is that s-supposed to secretly mean inedible? It makes sense now... Y-You know that I’ve never prepared honmei choco before so you’re trying to trick me into making a fool of myself.”

She shifted a foot back in case she needed to flee or worse, in case Aoi’s bubbly aura spread and contaminated Touko’s judgment enough to make her consider acting on such a horrible idea.

Aoi gaped and gave her head a small shake. “We’d never do that, Fukawa-chan. Kirigiri-chan and I just want to help you.” Her basket clattered again as she flung up her fists. “You have my word. We’ll help you as much as we can and besides,” a wink, “making chocolate is super easy and a lot of fun.”

Kyouko nodded.

“You’re acting as if you know what you’re talking about,” Touko snapped, hunching her shoulders. She let out a dull laugh. “Byakuya-sama doesn’t even celebrate Valentine’s Day. He... He told me that his family annually hired a disposal crew to throw away any gifts that people tried to give him. I-Instead of accepting them in person, he would insist chocolates be delivered to that team so they could be destroyed.”

Touko fiddled with the rubber cylinder partially encasing the handle of her empty shopping basket, eyes cast down to her feet with her toes turned inward. Byakuya imparted to Touko this aspect of his earlier stages of life the week before, in the apartment complex’s study where she asked him about any plans he might have for that day. The answer was none and once he recounted his past, he directed the shred of attention that he temporarily gave her back to his book.

“He... never even saw any of his Valentines,” Touko added in a softer tone, wringing her wrist. “He never saw any of them.”

And yet Touko still popped to the local store and wandered over to the chocolate aisle, as if she would stumble upon a suitable honmei choco for Byakuya that might change his mind. If she found the right one, she knew that Byakuya would accept the chocolate and her affections. Her pounding heart burned with this truth, threatening to burst out of her chest and leave a gaping hole.

“You mean he has never been given a Valentine before?” Aoi repeated in enough surprise to lift Touko’s gaze from the floor. “Well, now he doesn’t have a team to do that kind of weird stuff anymore so it should be easier, right?”

“W-Weird?” said Touko with wide eyes.

“What surprises me is that he would be popular enough to need a disposal crew,” Kyouko muttered, turning her body away and folding her arms over her chest.

Touko’s face flushed and she intended to ask Kyouko what exactly that was supposed to mean, but Aoi distracted her by reaching forward and hooking an arm around Touko’s elbow.

“You can be the first person to give him a honmei choco, Fukawa-chan,” said Aoi brightly, tugging Touko after her as she exited the aisle. “I bet he will accept it now... Since you came back from Towa City, he hasn’t been able to keep his eyes off you. Let’s get you some yummy ingredients and afterwards, we can all go to my place and get down to work. I know the perfect thing for your honmei choco.”

“I never said I agreed to this,” Touko insisted, staggering around the corner but not breaking free of Aoi’s grip. “A-And how would you know where he’s been looking?” She raised her voice. “Have you been spying on us, you... y-you...?”

Kyouko shook her head, smiling fondly, and followed after them.

* * *

When people said ‘make your own chocolate for Valentine’s Day’, they didn’t necessarily mean ‘grind roasted cocoa beans and heat the paste alongside various other ingredients’. It could also mean ‘melt these bars of chocolate and pour the liquid into a mould so that it solidifies in a different shape’.

Thankfully, Aoi’s idea of making chocolate was the second definition. Upon letting herself and the other two inside her apartment, Aoi wiped the island counter clean of any leftover crumbs and sticky patches. Aoi threw the dish cloth into the sink after and unpacked the shopping bags so everything was ready for Touko and Kyouko once they had returned from washing their hands.

“This thing you suggested I cook,” said Touko, shuffling over and positioning herself at one end of the island counter. Her brow creased at all the items laid out. “It really tastes delicious...?”

“Uh huh,” promised Aoi, breaking up bars of chocolate and dropping the pieces into a heatproof bowl. “When I’m watching my weight, I snack on them because they aren’t too heavy on calories but still taste great.”

“Eh?” Touko quivered. “A-Are you saying that Byakuya-sama has been gaining weight? Do you think he is fat?”

Aoi’s grin dimmed. “No, that’s not-”

“- b-because, j-just so you know, that would only mean there is more of him for me to cherish!”

Kyouko cleared her throat before Aoi could accidentally dig herself into a deeper hole with a shovel crafted out of poorly-worded justifications. She set her heatproof bowl, broken chocolate ready to melt inside it, over a pan of water simmering on the stove.

“Anyway,” said Aoi, turning back to Touko, “all you have to do is melt your chocolate like Kirigiri-chan and then when it’s all gooey, you take it off the heat and stir in the tofu. Then, when it’s smooth enough, you just tip it into your mould and you’re done.”

That sounded relatively simple so Touko began crumbling her chocolate above a small bowl. Though Aoi finished before Touko, she lingered at the counter and filled in bits of her mould with chocolate from one of the pens that she bought. The mould itself was indented with pig faces and Touko cast it a dirty look but made no comment. Touko’s mould, after much time spent deliberating and dithering over the store’s available stock, promised heart-shaped chocolates that would truly let Byakuya know how much she loved him.

Her own heart fluttered at the idea of confessing her love to him. After all this time, she had yet to string those three monosyllabic words into that classic cliche saying. Earlier delusions that she conjured to pass the time involved gusts of cherry blossom wind and the roof of a school building, but she pictured now just the two of them, in the downstairs study, her with the linen gift bag that she bought at the store along with the chocolate ingredients.

“I think Togami likes you, you know,” remarked Aoi.

Touko huffed. “O-Of course he does.”

“Like, really really.” Aoi scratched the end of the nose. “I mean it’s hard to tell with him but...”

She shrugged.

Kyouko walked over with her bowl, spilling half of its chocolate into a different bowl. The base of the first bowl met the counter with a clonk and she started to spoon white chocolate into the petal segments of her mould’s flower-shaped indentations.

Chocolate saturated the air with a sweet, rich creaminess. Touko brought her bowl over to the stove and heated her chocolate over the pan. When the chocolate had softened, she removed her bowl from the ring and returned the island counter. She opened the cutlery drawer and seized a knife, which she cut through a slab of tofu that she then mixed in with the chocolate.

“H-Hey,” said Touko, swirling her spoon through the mixture and looking over at Aoi, who was heating her chocolate over the stove. “Asahina... Why did you say that he likes me all of a sudden?”

Aoi blinked. “Huh? Oh. Um...”

She put her bowl down on the island counter and added in droplets of pink food colouring. Sticking out her tongue a little, she poured the chocolate into her mould and filled in sixteen pig faces in total.

“I mean... I don’t know, he seems less... nasty? Less uptight? I don’t know why I mentioned it really,” said Aoi, shaking her head. The beads of chocolate that she poked in with the pen earlier had cooled so when the chocolates were later poked out of their mould, the pink pig chocolates would have milk chocolate eyes and nostrils.

On the other side of the island counter, Kyouko mixed matcha powder into the second bowl so the chocolate inside turned green. She trickled this chocolate into the circular centre of the flower indentations.

“Togami-kun is easy to read in some ways but more difficult in others,” Kyouko noted aloud. All of her flower indentations had been filled with chocolate so she carried her mould over to the fridge. “Admittedly, after the incident in Towa City, he seems to have opened up a little more.”

Kyouko shut the fridge door.

“Even though he tried to hide it, he was eager for you to come back once you and Komaru weren’t required to stay there any longer. Your devotion to him is like that of flowing water against a jagged rock... You may have succeeded in eroding his outer layer.”

“N-No,” said Touko. “You’re wrong.”

“Excuse me?” asked Kyouko, brow lowered.

“Byakuya-sama wouldn’t change for me, a-and he is the same on the outside as he is on the inside. If he did... change like that... th-then he wouldn’t be him.” Touko bent forward, smoothing the surface of each tofu chocolate heart with a spatula. Satisfied that the top of every heart was flat and level and perfect, she slid it onto a rack in the fridge that Aoi had cleared so it could accommodate three moulds with space to spare.

“I don’t think he changed for you,” said Kyouko, head inclined to one side. “I think Togami-kun’s exposure to people who he can consider his peers played a part... I have the feeling that before he met us, he didn’t socialise much outside of a business environment. We’ve all changed a fair amount since the mutual killings started and several things have inspired these developments. Him, me and even you are different than before, though you may not have realised, Fukawa-san. You’ve become stronger and I’m sure Togami-kun has noticed.”

Touko bit down on her lower lip.

“Phew!” Aoi rubbed the back of her hand across her forehead, smearing chocolate. “Kirigiri-chan is right. The old you would never have agreed to all this quality time. Okay, we have some chocolate leftover for Fukawa-chan to make into giri choco and tomo choco. I think I have another mould somewhere in one of the cabinets...”

“Tomo choco?” repeated Touko in a hesitant tone, watching Aoi forage the kitchen for the elusive spare mould. “Th-That’s...!”

“Friend chocolate,” Aoi said, rising on tiptoe and rifling through pots and pans.

“I know what it means!” Touko snapped, turning her head to the side. “I... I just never had anyone to give them to...”

Well, other than Komaru, but Komaru was Komaru and not the same age too.

She expected someone to laugh. Mostly Aoi, who would giggle and say something like, ‘oh, Fukawa-chan, so you’ve always been a friendless loser right from when you got sucked into the commercial holiday that is Valentine’s Day, drawn in by the hearts and promises of true love and fairy tale endings.’ Or even an ignorant sigh that would be heaved out along with a, ‘you must have had at least one friend, Fukawa-chan.’

“Ah,” said Aoi, waving a grey mould above her head. “Found it!”

“You have us now,” said Kyouko, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear and flashing a small smile at Touko.

Touko unleashed a grating wail.

Aoi dropped the mould and it clacked at her feet. She whipped her head around, alarmed. “Fukawa-chan, are you all right?”

It took Touko a few seconds to manage any words. “Y-Yes...” Touko lifted a hand to her mouth so the other two couldn’t see the smile that spread across her lips. “I’m... all right...”

* * *

The ceiling light in the dining room hummed.

“Thanks, Fukawa-chi,” said Yasuhiro, squinting at the chocolate star between his thumb and index finger. “This little guy reminds me of myself, what with my hair and all.”

He gestured toward his mess of hair that, though tied into a ponytail, nevertheless stuck out at the back in a shape that resembled a twinkling star. Sort of.

Makoto nodded and bit off the head of his chocolate angel. “They’re great, Fukawa-san. Thank you.”

Warmth swelled in Touko’s chest and she stood up taller, though as the boys were all seated around the table still, being taller than them wasn’t much of a feat at the present moment. “Of course they are great! W-Why wouldn’t they be? How I look doesn’t affect their quality...!”

Aoi pressed a chocolate pig head into Yasuhiro’s palm to replace Hagakure Junior that now crunched between his teeth.

“Don’t forget you guys will have to give us something three times more valuable later,” said Aoi, giving Kyouko a piece of chocolate.

Yasuhiro nearly choked.

“Three times more valuable?” asked Byakuya, lifting his chin off his hand and looking away from Touko for a moment.

“Yes,” said Aoi with a grin. “On White Day, you have to give a present back to everyone who gave you something today. That’s the rule.”

Chewing loudly, Yasuhiro stuck his thumb up at Touko. He swallowed and said, “This tastes awesome, Fukawa-chi. If you ever want to go commercial, you give me a call, ‘right? I have contacts.”

Her lips twitched at the sentiment. She turned away from him and approached Byakuya, who was idly rolling Kyouko’s chocolate flower between his fingers.

“What do you plan to give me then, hm?” Byakuya watched her draw nearer. “A chocolate Santa?”

Touko extended forward the hand that she had hidden behind her back until now, showing him the linen bag containing tofu chocolate hearts. Everyone hushed.

The ceiling light in the dining room hummed.

Byakuya stared at her offering, a furrow in his brow. “What is that thing?”

“My chocolate for you,” she said, clinging onto the rush of confidence that Yasuhiro’s and Makoto’s compliments had fueled her with. “It’s honmei chocolate...”

“Is that different to the other chocolates?”

“Yes.” Her cheeks burned. “It’s.. t-true love... chocolate...”

Someone gasped. She suspected it was Yasuhiro. It was probably Yasuhiro. Byakuya shot him a glare. It was definitely Yasuhiro.

Byakuya’s eyelids fluttered. “‘True love?’” He actually tensed. Disgust manifested in his facial features. “That’s absurd. Remove this atrocious thing from my sight.”

Of course he would say that. Perhaps Aoi lied when she claimed it delicious, or Touko’s taste buds had been wrong when she tried some to make sure it wasn’t poisonous, or...

Touko felt her heart sink but forced it back up with a deep breath that rejuvenated her heart, that set her body aflame with fierce determination. If anyone was good enough to present him with chocolate, it was her. She thrust the bag forward, into Byakuya’s face. “Take it!”

The legs of Byakuya’s chair screeched as he jerked backward. He lifted a flat hand, as if he planned to swat the bag away, but his fingers instead curled into a fist and remained frozen against his palm.

“It’s tofu chocolate,” she explained in a hushed tone. “To... Fu.”

All eyes bored into him.

Byakuya’s icy stare cracked and thawed. Though he quickly tried to restore it to its previous chilled state, some warmth, some emotion glowed behind the thin surface of ice across his eyes. He turned his head away and muttered, “Ask me again later. This doesn’t call for an audience.”

She grinned.

* * *

Touko had to stand on tiptoe to reach his lips.

* * *

One month later, Touko was sitting on the sofa in Byakuya’s living room. Her hands cupped her knees in a squeeze as she waited for Byakuya to return with his White Day gift. Touko wondered what it would be. Chocolate? Marshmallows? Jewelry? Lingerie? Touko vibrated in her seat, tempted to jump to her feet and barge into his bedroom without permission.

“You can come for your gift now,” he finally called.

She bounded over to the door and shoved it open, staring at the sight that greeted her.

Byakuya lay back on his bed, reading a book, head propped up on a pillow, clad only in white lingerie. A lit candle sat on the bedside table, wafting a rose scent.

Touko’s gaze swam up his expanses of leg to the coastline that was the wide frill of his garter belt. For a while, she bathed her eyes in his panties, then paddled up his stomach to his matching bra before submerging herself in his tinted pink face.

“Well?” he drawled, tossing his book to the side and slouching forward. “Are you going to stand there like a fool all day or come retrieve your present?”

Within the next half hour, his gift for White Day lay crumpled on the carpet.

 


End file.
